George Davidson

George Davidson (1752-1777) was an officer in the Ethiopian Regiment of the British Army during the American Revolutionary War. Formerly an escaped slave from New Orleans, he enlisted in the Patriot cause but joined his former fellow slave Titus Cornelius ("Colonel Ty") in the British army and was killed in 1777.

Biography
George Davidson was born in Africa in 1752, but was captured by slave traders and was one of the servants of Quaker settler John Corlies alongside Titus Cornelius. Wealthy merchant daughter Madeleine de L'Isle offered to give him freedom if he joined the Templar Order, and was freed from his plantation. He worked together with the Spanish government in smuggling supplies to the American Patriots before the American Revolutionary War, but in 1775 joined John Murray Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment of freedmen to fight for the Loyalists and have his freedom guaranteed. He joined his former fellow slave Titus Cornelius (now known as "Colonel Ty") as a soldier for the Loyalists, and became an officer. In 1777, his fort was assaulted by the American Patriots and he was killed when a gunpowder barrel in his carriage was shot at and exploded. He was confronted by his rescuer from New Orleans, Aveline de Grandpre, who found out that Davidson only sought "real freedom" by joining the Loyalist, as the Ethiopian Regiment's members would be freed from slavery in exchange for their service in King George III of Great Britain's army. Davidson also revealed that Aveline's stepmother Madeleine de L'Isle was the Grand Master of the Colonial Rite of the Templar Order in the south, before dying.